


And a Side of Fries

by tawg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-20
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel adopts a chicken. Chickens can't fly, and Cas has issues with this. Written for the Dean/Cas/Sam love meme on LJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And a Side of Fries

They try to explain it to him.

“It’s due to selective breeding,” Sam tells him. “For consumption you want bigger, ah.”

“Breasts, Sammy. You’re talking about breasts.”

“Right. The breast portion needs to be... it’s desirable-”

“Farmers bred chickens to have big hooters, okay Cas?”

“And now they’re too heavy to get off the ground,” Sam finishes in a rush.

Castiel pokes the chicken with a long, gentle finger, before turning back to the brothers. “This vessel is significantly heavier than a chicken,” he replies.

*

“It’s because chickens are food,” Dean says, talking with his mouth full of hot and spicy tenders. Castiel is watching him with the closest thing to horror that Sam has ever seen on his face, his own taste for meat apparently forgotten. The chicken is clutched protectively in his arms.

“You don’t want your food flying away, that’s damn annoying, right?” The chicken clucks absently, and Dean takes it as a noise of agreement. “Right. You don’t see burgers with wings.”

“What about Buffalo wings?” Sam asks, pulling a face at Dean that was mainly crinkled nose topped with his tongue poking out.

“Buffaloes do not have wings,” Castiel tells them sagely. “I have checked.”

“No, Buffalo wings are wings cooked in a Buffalo sauce.”

“There is a sauce made out of buffaloes?”

Sam leaves them to it.

*

“Look, Cas, chickens have just never been very good at flying.” Sam has an article pulled up on his laptop, with an illustrated timeline of chicken-evolution. “The early chickens, the wild red jungle fowl-”

“That’s a great name for a band.”

“Shut up, Dean. They just weren’t that good at flying. They’re land birds, like ducks and turkeys. They only need to fly to escape predators and things like that.”

Castiel looks down at the chicken in his arms. “It’s a chicken,” he says finally. “Nearly everything is its predator.”

It’s hard to counter that argument. Especially when Dean stares at it meaningfully, and complains of the lack of Kentucky Fried goodness in this Podunk town.

Castiel (and his chicken) do not appreciate that insinuation.

*

“There are plenty of birds that can’t fly,” Dean says. “Like emus,” and then struggles to add to the list.

“Ostriches,” Sam supplies. “Penguins. Kiwis and cassowaries.”

“The inaccessible island Rail. What? I’ve watched a documentary or two in my time.”

“Why can’t they fly?” Castiel asks Sam, all confused mouth and big blue eyes.

Sam has a horrible image of Castiel in the back of the Impala, surrounded by a flock of flightless birds, and the fit that Dean would likely pitch in response.

“They’ve got other things,” Sam eventually replies. “Like, they can run fast, or they can swim, or maybe they can defend themselves.”

“Or else they look so mean no one would fuck with them,” Dean adds, peering at some images over Sam’s shoulder. “Like that fucker right there. Birds should not have eyebrows, that’s all I’m saying.”

Castiel looks down at the chicken like it’s an unsolvable Rubik’s cube, with candy and glitter and unicorns trapped inside. “Then why do they have wings at all?” he asks.

Sam and Dean share a look. “Well,” Sam says eventually. He’d never thought he’d be bringing this topic up with an angel of the lord. “They just haven’t finished evolving yet.”

“You don’t want to rush evolution,” Dean agrees. “You throw away something like wings too fast, you can guarantee you’re going to need them again in a few thousand years.”

Sam gives Dean the hardest kick in the leg he can manage, not even pretending to be subtle, because Cas does _not_ need to be reminded that he’s falling. Not that Castiel notices.

“Giving something wings but not the ability to use them... that’s just _cruel_.” And he looks so heartbroken that it’s hard to look at him.

“Well,” Sam tries desperately, “you know. It’s not like they’re being stripped of all that’s good in the world.”

Castiel gives Sam a look that says otherwise.

“Chickens still have a lot going for them,” Sam persists, even though he’s aware that he has no leg to stand on.

“Like a crispy coating and a side of fries.” Dean gets another kick for his effort.

“Chickens have nothing,” Castiel says forlornly, hugging the chicken gently to his chest. “They have been stripped of their natural defence. They’ve had no new abilities take their place. As a species they have been molested.”

“Yeah,” Dean says with a grin. “But what a tasty victim of- _ow_ , damnit Sam!”

“They don’t need any of that,” Sam says, getting ready for the first time in his life to defend chicken farms and they comparable safety from harm they provide (at the sacrifice of comfort, ethics, and basic chicken rights), when Dean steps in.

“They’ve got you,” Dean says simply. “I mean, how many species get angels getting all cut up about them and gazing lovingly into the beady little chicken eyes?”

Castiel looks up at them with that confused expression that comes from desperately wanting to understand something, and still failing a little at the same time.

“That chicken doesn’t need any of that cool stuff like claws or the ability to fly,” Dean pushes on. “It’s got you, it’s big, surrogate-chicken-brother looking out for it.”

“Like you look after Sam?”

Dean stares at the chicken, and Castiel hugging it, and then looks at his ridiculously huge little brother, who kind of started the apocalypse that one time. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Exactly like me and Sam.”

“And like we look after you,” Sam adds.

“So...” Castiel pauses, squinting a little as he makes multiple ideas finally click together in his head. “The chicken is part of our family?”

Dean opens his mouth, and then pauses under the combined weight of Castiel’s hopeful look, Sam’s ‘you will not fuck this up’ glare, and the chicken’s beady, beady gaze.

“Yes,” he sighs in defeat. “The chicken is part of the fucking family.”

Castiel smiles, as much as he ever does. “Do we hug now?”

“ _No!_ ”

*

They end up hugging eventually, the chicken clucking contentedly between them.

“Where did he even get a chicken from in the first place?”

“Just shut up and enjoy the moment.”


End file.
